OPV ‘Relámpago’ collaborates with ongoing scientific activities in support of the Isle of La Palma.

The offshore patrol vessel (OPV) ‘Relámpago’ (P-43) set sail last December 10th with a group of six scientists on board from the Institute of Marine Sciences which belongs to the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC in its Spanish initials) and the GEOMAR Institute, headquartered in Kiel (Germany) with the goal of deploying ten ocean bottom seismometers (OBS) to gather valuable information to understand the dynamic of the current volcanic eruption in La Palma (Canary Islands).

This specific scientific mission off La Palma coast adds to the deployment of two other OBSs from the Spanish Navy Royal Observatory laid last November by the hydrographic vessel ‘Malaspina’ near the flat terrain at the foot of slopes that reached the sea at the bottom of the Cumbre Vieja volcano. In this way, the technical instruments used to understand the nature of the volcanic eruption and the geophysical dynamic of the area are thus improved and reinforced.